Elements, Brains and Fangs (Old version)
by TweetyGhost
Summary: When the Cobalt family move back to Beacon Hills, reuniting Amy with her best friends Scott, Stiles and Lucy, what troubles will they be faced with? Will she be able to protect them from the world that she grew up in, or will she have to fight to keep her area of the supernatural out of their lives? Stiles x OC possibly
1. Body Findings and Reunions

To say that the announcement we were moving back to America was a surprise was somewhat of an understatement. It had come on an ordinary day, and I could still remember it as though it were yesterday.

It was nearing the end of the summer term, the doors and windows were open in an attempt to keep the house cool with the light breeze that was whistling through – it didn't do much though. Sounds of the neighbours sorting out a barbeque, mixed in with the local kids giggling as they had cold water fights and the odd ice cream van music reminding us that the holidays were looming ever closer kept drifting into the house.

Van was colouring on the kitchen table, babbling about something stupid that Roy Bryde had done during lesson that made the whole class laugh so hard 'we almost snotted milk out of our noses!' Teddy was working on some project or another, a scowl on his face as he rubbed the back of a hand across his forehead. He was picking at the intricate wires inside the radio, despite Mum's protests of not trying to make scientific discoveries on her kitchen table, smirking as she did so though. I was sitting to one side, trying to get the best of the breeze from the garden while reading _Harry Potter_ once more.

Over the top of the book I'd seen Dad walk in, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably. An awkward tension hung in the air, Mum stopped ruffling Teddy's hair, muttering something about needing to fill the kettle before hurrying over to the counter. I closed the book, keeping my thumb in place and eyeing Dad. Teddy hissed in pain, and I knew that Dad had caught his attention as well. Van was the only one who didn't seem to get it – though, at five I guess it was to be expected. She jumped up, her pencils clattering across the table, and ran to hug Dad around the knees.

'Hey, squirt,' he said softly, patting her lightly on the head. A weak smile played on his face as he picked her up, causing her to giggle, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

'What's up, Dad?' Teddy asked calmly.

Dad exhaled slowly. 'We're moving back to America,' he said simply, not looking over though, keeping his attention firmly on the bundle of excitement in his arms.

'We're what?' I asked, looking around at Mum for confirmation.

She merely nodded, her eyes darting quickly over to Dad before she turned to busy herself with the kettle again.

'America?' Van asked brightly.

Dad chuckled, a slight look of relief crossing his features. That was one of us on side at least.

'Yeah. Moving back to where we used to live, actually.'

'You brought it back?' asked Teddy, though the scepticism behind his voice was almost tangible.

'We never sold it.' Dad's response was sharp, his tone bringing the conversation to an end.

A look of irritation clouded Teddy's features, but before he could say anything Van cut across him.

'Can we go to Disneyland?'

While Van's excitement made Teddy's glowering expression deepen it seemed to bring Dad back to his usual cheerful self.

He sat down on the chair she'd left free, sitting her on his knee and bouncing his leg slightly. Then he started with the stories, the ones that Teddy and I had heard so many times before I was certain we could almost recite them now; the ones about growing up in Beacon Hills, causing trouble with his friends and running riot whenever they could; the ones about his old friend from police training, Richard Stilinski. And then, to round it all off, the one about meeting Mum on that blustery day when she'd hurried into the café he'd been working in, her best friend Oscar by her side.

Yet while Van ooohed and aaahed in all the right places, constantly asking Mum about the truth in the stories, Teddy kept casting sideways glances at me. An eyebrow always incredulously raised before he rolled his eyes and turned his attention back towards his radio's insides. But all I could do was shrug in response. How the hell was I supposed to know what was going on? I wasn't even sure about how I felt about the revelation, for crying out loud!

I'd sighed, turning my attention back towards the book. I couldn't concentrate though. Thoughts about going back were swirling around my mind. I'd get to see the boys again – in person rather than at awkward times over Skype, always too late or early for one of us, normally me though ('Hey, there are two of us, so it's only fair,' Stiles would always comment as I grumbled about another late night Skype call). We could go on adventures, though I was certain that they wouldn't be as daring or entertaining as our fights against dragons in Stiles' back garden when we were three. I'd have Lucy by my side, being my voice of reason before following along on our escapades to try and keep us out of too much trouble.

But it also meant uprooting again. Moving before was easy, I was about Van's age so everything was exciting. Well, it had been until I realised that Scott, Stiles and Lucy weren't just around the corner anymore. The American twang meant that making friends was easy, the constant barrage of questions about the place did get wearing eventually though. But settling into English life had been relatively easy, despite the whole colour spelling arguments – I knocked them down though, Mum always made sure we spelt it the English way, it had caused Teddy to get several detentions for telling teachers in America they were spelling it wrong, but that was the best it had spawned for entertainment.

'Night, Aim.' Van's soft voice pulled me from my musings, and I glanced down at her.

She was already dressed for bed, her eyelids were drooping slightly from tiredness and her light brown eyes seemed to be slightly duller than normal, not quite focusing on me. She stifled a yawn, trying to hide it behind a fist, causing me to smirk.

'G'night, Van. Sleep well,' I said, leaning to kiss her lightly on the forehead.

'Night, Vanessa,' Teddy said, smirking over at her as she plodded towards him.

'Hey!' she said indignantly, pouting at him while trying to hide another yawn.

Teddy lent over to ruffle her hair. 'Sweet dreams.'

'I'm gonna dream about America!' she said brightly, causing Teddy's face to drop, before Mum rubbed a hand over the five-year-old's head and led her off to bed.

Once we heard them moving around upstairs Teddy rounded on Dad.

'Why're we moving back to America?'

It was odd hearing my older brother snap at Dad like that. It wasn't something that normally happened, given Dad's laidback attitude and Teddy's preoccupation with finding out how things worked. But I knew why he was doing this. Cora. Years ago Dad'd taken a call from Richard about the Hale fire. No one was quite sure what exactly had happened, or who in the family had been there, but they were assuming the worst. Teddy'd always been close with Cora, she was one of the ones he tried to keep in touch with once we'd moved. He'd tried – man, had he tried to contact her since the fire, trying to find out that she was OK… if she was OK – but to no avail. And so, the prospect of returning there looming over us meant that Teddy just didn't want to go stirring up the past, and who could blame him?

Dad sighed though, wetting his lips as he gazed steadily at Teddy. 'More work's cropped up there. Your mum and I have decided that it's easier for all of us to be–'

'We're we _really_ moving to America?'

Dad's pale blue eyes flashed with annoyance, he clenched his jaw once before sighing, leaning his elbows on the table. His gaze steadily scanned the two of us, as if making sure that we were paying attention.

'It's exactly as I said, Edward, Amelia-Jane,' he told us calmly, his eyes focusing on Teddy though. The use of the full fist names meant only one thing: he was annoyed – though, why I'd been dragged into this I wasn't sure. 'Car reckons Beacon Hills is the place to be again.'

Teddy snorted in irritation, leaning back in his seat. 'So you're uprooting us because of Oscar, again?'

'Exactly.'

Mum's arrival couldn't have been timed more perfectly. All attention snapped towards her, before Dad could shout and Teddy dig himself a deeper hole by trying to argue. I had the sense that the move was already all sorted, that there was no way of turning back even if we protested by chaining ourselves to the front of the house.

'Teddy, darling,' Mum spoke softly as she moved to sit at the head of the table, 'it's for the best. I promise.'

Teddy sighed deeply, pushing his chair out from the table so that it gave a horrible squeak against the tiles. 'I'm going to bed,' he said simply, before striding out of the kitchen, without so much as a backwards glance.

We'd left a short while after that, the school terms having drawn to a close and heartfelt goodbyes exchanged with friends and neighbours – our parents really had waited until the last minute to speak to us. We didn't go straight to the house though, as an apology our parents had decided to take us on a road trip, focusing on Disneyland for Van though.

It was nice, trying to forget about everything, trying to ignore the niggle of nervousness in the back of my mind at the prospect of going back to Beacon Hills, and the ability to text my old friends without worrying about phone costs was helping with that. Even Teddy seemed to lighten up slightly, sitting through Disney films with Van when we got back to the hotel rooms. It didn't stop him from wanting to take the DVD player apart though when the disc packed up ('No!' Mum had said shrilly when he twirled the screwdriver between his fingers and began advancing towards the thing).

But we all knew it couldn't last forever, and before we knew it we were back in the car, making our way towards Beacon Hills.

None of us really paid much attention to the scenery that flashed past the windows. Mum and Dad were talking in the front, the music from some happy radio station just loud enough for us not to hear quite what they were saying though. Van was playing twenty questions with Teddy, though neither of them seemed too happy with the final answer of the other, ('How was I meant to guess photo… photo… that thing?' 'Photosynthesis, Van, and surely they've taught you that by now?') Yet I remained curled in the corner, trying to sleep and not laugh too loudly at the arguments which were slowly raising to a level that might be the beginnings of World War Three.

'And, Van, welcome to…' Dad eventually said brightly, his attention flicking up to the rear view mirror so as to look at us.

The sky was growing a dark purple colour as the evening drew in. The odd star was already blinking to life, paling in comparison to the light of the moon though, when it wasn't hidden behind a dark grey cloud. There weren't as many as I would have liked to see, the lights from the buildings distorting them, but there were enough to keep my attention.

'… Beacon Hills,' Dad concluded as we drove past the sign telling us where we were.

Van cheered, bouncing in her seat as she tried to look out of the back window at the sign once more. Mum chuckled lightly, scolding Van slightly but not quite managing the seriousness needed. Teddy, however, looked slightly pale.

'Hey,' I muttered to him, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. His attention snapped towards me, and even in the relative darkness I could see that his eyes were shining. 'We'll visit somewhere, if you want. For a proper goodbye?'

Teddy exhaled slowly, as if attempting to calm himself down, before nodding. 'I'd like that, Amy; thank you.'

I shrugged slightly, sighing as I took my hand away from him and turned my attention to the suburban houses that were now flashing past the window. They all looked a lot bigger than the houses I was used to in England, though not as big as I remembered them being. Most of the front gardens were kept neat and tidy, it was as if no one had anything to do in this town other than mow the grass and plant flowers.

When the car finally stopped Van's attention flicked quickly between the houses as she babbled excitedly, 'Which one's ours? Is it that one – with the little gnomes? Do we have gnomes? Who're the neighbours? Are there kids 'round here?' Teddy, however, cut her ramblings short with a simple nudge before pointing towards the house just outside her window.

Van squealed excitedly, causing us to laugh as she jumped out of the car in her eagerness to get a better look. Dad followed her quickly, grumbling about being stiff from the drive. Mum clicked the CD out of the player as Teddy and I shifted out of the car, casting each other a questioning look at the sight of the house.

The stonework was a dark grey colour, flecked with sections of cream around the windows. The grass was longer than it should have been, looking more like a jungle in comparison to the close cut gardens either side of it. The bushes that scattered the edges of the garden, they looked like little guards, were a mess of tangled sticks and weeds; I couldn't remember if they were meant to be there or had simply popped up over the years, but there were a lot of them. There was a large apple tree in the centre, it looked about twice as thick as normal ones; there was a mix of full and partially eaten apples strewn around the garden, hidden amongst the patches of weeds.

'Welcome home,' said Dad brightly, looking around at us with a wide grin. 'Hey, why don't you three go explore and we'll sort out unpacking the last of the stuff? – Car and Pat sorted most of it out for us,' he added as I raised a curious eyebrow.

Van turned to face us excitedly, her eyes wide in wonder. I felt a smile slip easily onto my face as I moved forward to take her hand. 'C'mon you, let's see if we can't show you all the wonders of this place,' I said.

Despite my attempt to sound as excited as Van was about the prospect of going inside, I couldn't help but acknowledge the little bubble of anxiousness in my stomach. What if it looked different to how I remembered it? Would it still be as homely as it once was? Did it still hold all the memories that I'd grown up on?

'Hey,' Teddy said lightly, nudging my shoulder as we walked down the garden path, 'we gonna show her all the places the gnomes hide? Or should we leave it?'

I turned to look towards him, confusion slipping easily onto my face as Van began babbling excitedly about finding gnomes, questioning what other magical beast were hidden there, too.

'What? Why're you looking at me like that?' Teddy asked, his brow furrowing slightly as he unlocked the door, the keys jangling in his hand.

'It's just, I can't remember the last time you said anything about gnome hiding places, let alone finding them,' I said thoughtfully.

He shrugged, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth though as he let Van push the door open. She gasped in excitement, moving quickly into the darkened hallway.

'I'm gonna need your help remembering where they all are though, Amy,' he said, before stepping over the threshold.

My worries about the house fell away as we explored it. Everything felt the same as before, though with the addition of an excitable Van who kept rambling on about how she was going to decorate her room with flowers, butterflies and colour changing lights if Teddy could sort it for her. She seemed intrigued by our rooms, the array of mechanical equipment that still littered Teddy's floor making her ask about the gnomes and if they'd taken anything. Even he grinned when he saw the mess, it seemed as though his annoyance at Oscar for dragging us back here had dissipated slightly.

'Oohh,' Van squealed as we reached my door. She stood on her tiptoes in an attempt to get a better look at the name plaque, but she was still too short to see it. 'Did you make it?' she asked as I picked her up.

I smirked, memories flooding my mind.

'Kinda,' I said simply, shifting the plaque slightly so as to inspect it. 'It was kind of a group effort. I wrote my name–'

'It's very neat writing,' she piped up, causing me to chuckle slightly. It really wasn't. It was the untidy scrawl of a little kid who hadn't quite grasped the concept of writing. Stiles had tried to help, muttering advice in my ear before writing my name on a scrap piece of paper and irritating me with how much better he was at it than me.

'Lucy added the glitter – said something about making it sparkle at night. Claudia did the butterfly for me–'

'That was Stiles' mum, right?'

I nodded, frowning over at Teddy who was still lingering in his own doorway, a small clockwork robot in his hands. A lump formed in my throat, a knot of worry in my stomach, but I swallowed before carrying on with my explanation.

'Scott did the background. We had quite the little–'

I was cut off by a sharp knock on the door though. Without thinking I put Van down carefully and darted towards the banisters, leaning over them slightly so as to see the hallway.

'Who is it?' asked Van in a whisper, dancing beside me as she tried to look down between the railings. Teddy was on her other side, crouching down so as to peer over the handrail.

Dad opened the door and quickly moved out of the way so as to let our visitor in. The man that moved swiftly into the hallway was thinner than Dad and had a mop of messy black hair streaked with the odd bit of grey, it looked as though it was damp with what I assumed was rain – though for all I knew it could've been sweat. Even from here I recognised our guest though. It was–

'Oscar,' muttered Teddy, causing Van to fall silent as she moved to the top of the stairs.

'What's he doing here?' I asked, tearing my eyes away from the hallway so as to look over at Teddy, whose face was the picture of confusion. His brow was furrowed, his eyes darting across the hallway as he thought, and he moved a hand to push his dark brown curls off his forehead.

'Who knows. Probably telling Dad he was wrong and we should head back to England,' he said dismissively.

I rolled my eyes before looking back over the banister. The hallway was empty.

My head was reeling though. We'd not been here a day and Oscar had already found a job for him and Dad? Well, that seemed highly unlikely. So why was he here? Evidentially it wasn't a social call, or we'd've been called down by now. I furrowed my brow slightly, trying to focus my thoughts on the reasons Oscar turned up. But none of them were good.

'I'll be back in a bit,' I said absently, moving away from the others. 'I've got a call to make.'

'But we're finding pixies now!' said Van indignantly, but curiosity was coursing through me, making it difficult to concentrate on anything else.

As soon as I was in my room, sitting on my bed with my phone in my hand, I froze. Who would I call? I contemplated Scott or Stiles, but if something bad enough had happened to get Oscar over here in the rain then I didn't need them by my sides. I didn't want them being brought into _that_ world – and I knew that if things got bad they'd only will me to go further.

No, I shook my head, trying my best to clear it. There was only one person who would help keep me slightly under control. The only person whose reason far exceeded their desire for an adventure. I found the number quickly and called.

It took three rings before Lucy picked up, sounding slightly breathless as she said 'Hello?'

I raised an eyebrow, despite knowing that she couldn't see me. 'Sorry, have I interrupted something?' I asked, barely keeping the chuckle out of my voice.

'Oh, ha, ha, Amy,' she said coolly. 'What's up?'

'You wanna go on an adventure?'

'What kind?' she asked carefully.

'An unexpected one?'

She groaned, and I was certain that she'd rolled her eyes. 'I'll come get you then.'

'Mind picking me up from the end of the road?'

'Whatever,' she said, though the note of exasperation in her voice told me that I was probably in for a moaning at when she saw me. 'See ya.'

'Yeah, see you in a bit,' I said, before hanging up.

My heart was thumping against my ribcage, excitement flooding through me as I glanced around my room. It wasn't as welcoming as my old one, though Oscar and Patrick had certainly tried with the array of teddy bears lining the top of the desk. It therefore wasn't hard to find a jacket in the top of my suitcase before darting out of the room.

Van and Teddy were still on the landing, arguing in low voices about something.

'Tell him to let me see the basement!' Van said, stamping her foot and folding her arms, a scowl crossing her face.

My heart froze though and I looked sharply up at Teddy. He shook his head ever so slightly. But he needn't have. I knew we couldn't let her see the training room, our parents had decided that she didn't need to know about that world. Not until she was older at least.

I sighed, stuffing my phone into my pocket before crouching in front of Van. I made sure that my face was level with hers, my hands lightly on her shoulders.

'Van,' I said slowly, my mind racing ahead of me, trying to think of an excuse while thinking about my adventure with Lucy as well. 'Look, you can't go into the troll's cove.'

The words escaped me before I had a chance to contemplate them. I saw her eyes widen in worry before she looked over her shoulder at Teddy. There was a small smirk on his face but he nodded firmly.

'We let them live there because we don't want them hurting anyone outside, but we've gotta steer clear of them, d'you get that?' I asked, my eyes darting across her face to try and see a hint of the curiosity that would make her go explore.

She nodded though, a certain amount of resolve flashing across her features. 'Yeah, I get it,' she said.

I grinned at her, shifting to kiss her lightly on the cheek before moving to go downstairs. Teddy caught my upper arm though.

'What're you doing?' he hissed, his back to Van.

'Finding out what's going on,' I said simply, moving my arm away from him. 'Behave while I'm gone.'

I shifted down the stairs, trying to be careful not to make the stairs creak – was it the third from the top or the fourth that squeaked if you stepped on it in the wrong place?

'I was gonna say the same to you,' I heard Teddy mutter before I was hallway down, causing me to smirk.

As I reached the bottom of the stairs I glanced quickly into the living room. I couldn't see any of the adults, meaning that the dash to the front door was a clear path. I took a calming breath before starting, swiping a set of spare keys off the table opposite the stairs as I did so.

As I reached the front door, my hand resting on the handle, I heard Oscar talking and froze, curiosity getting the better of me.

'Half a body in the preserve,' he said wearily. 'Pat found it, he was out jogging with a friend. Of course, he knew what it was but she called the police instantly.'

My heart hammered in my chest. This was bad. This was very bad. I shook my head though, wanting to see the thing for myself, see if there was anything I could do.

I wrenched the door open and stepped out into the rain. I slowly closed door behind me, desperately whispering at it to stay quiet. I squinted against the darkness, looking for Lucy's car as I pulled my jacket closer to me in an attempt to keep the rain off.

I caught sight of a car crawling slowly down the road, headlights off but wipers squeaking against the windshield. I grinned before darting off towards it, squinting through the window to try and see if it really was Lucy. Even in the dim light, however, I could make out her blonde hair, and I quickly pulled the door open.

'Wrong side, dimwit!' said Lucy shrilly as I went to slip into the seat, and right onto her lap.

'Sorry,' I said, smirking though as I darted around the front of the car and jumped in, shivering against the rain that was seeping through my clothes. 'Good to see you, Lu.'

She sighed, grinning over at me as she flicked the headlights on. 'You too, Amy. Anyway,' she said, focusing her attention on the road, 'where're we headed?'

'The preserve,' I said simply.

She quirked an eyebrow at me, her attention still on the road though as we went down a side road.

I shrugged. 'It's what I heard,' I said simply, causing her to give a grunt in response.

I knew that if I told her we were heading to the place to try and find a body she'd stop the car and turn around, telling me that it was the stupidest idea I'd ever come up with, one that was in league with Stiles'.

'So,' Lucy said, a lightly teasing tone to her voice, 'you looking forward to being the new kid?'

I rolled my eyes, a smirk slipping onto my face though. 'Do I count as new if I've known half of my classes from kindergarten?'

She chuckled, shrugging her shoulders and casting me a sideways glance. 'I dunno. Actually, I reckon it doesn't,' she said, a sly smile slipping onto her face as she flicked the indicator. 'If it did we wouldn't be able to tease you about being the Newbie.'

'Ha, ha,' I said sarcastically, turning my attention towards the scenery slipping past the window.

The streetlights were beginning to get fewer and further between as the trees began to thicken. The road was getting bumpier, the verges more overrun. Rain was buffering the car harder now, the wipers seemed to be in overdrive in an attempt to clear the view for even a second.

'Huh, why am I not surprised?' Lucy said we pulled up. Through the darkness her headlights fell across a blue, tattered looking jeep.

'Um, wanna illuminate the Newbie?' I asked as she killed the engine, plunging us into darkness.

'Stiles' car.'

I gaped at her, despite knowing she could barely see me.

'Hey, grab the flashlight out of the glove compartment, would you?' she asked.

'Flashlight? Why'd you have a torch with you?' I asked, shifting to get the thing out for her.

'I'm the prepared one, remember?' she said simply, taking the thing from me and flicking it on, shining it under her chin. Her green eyes were shining in amusement. 'Come on, let's get this over with.'

I beamed at her, being glad to have her by my side, before slipping out of the car. It was still raining, and my hood was doing very little to protect against it.

Walking through the woods was a quiet affair. Every so often Lucy would hiss at me about how stupid this was, before falling into a worried silence and moving the torch. She cut through the darkness quickly, as if trying to find something that would warrant making us turn back. I kept walking though, curiosity pushing me onwards.

We were winding our way up the side of a small hill when voices carried to our ears. I stopped dead as Lucy lowered the torch slightly.

'It's comforting to know you've planned this out with your usual attention to detail,' someone panted, the exasperation behind their voice made me smile slightly. It was Scott.

'Wanna have some fun?' I whispered to Lucy, smirking at her.

'Is this going to get us into trouble?'

'Define trouble?'

She shrugged. 'You'll do it if I help or not, so why not this once?'

I beamed, pulling her into a side hug before taking the torch from her. I clicked it off quickly, stuffing it up the sleeve of my jumper. I didn't really have a plan of action, but that made it all the more fun.

I snuck around the trees winding themselves around the path that I assumed the boys had taken. Lucy was close behind me, her hand gripping the back of my jumper so that she didn't get lost. Scott was the first one to come into view, leaning against a tree as he took a deep breath from his inhaler. Stiles was slightly ahead of him, practically lying on the floor and looking out between the trees.

As I jumped through the branches three things happened all at once. I clicked the torch on and shone it quickly around at the two boys. The two of them seemed to jump out of their skins, Stiles moving towards Scott while I raced to stand between them. And the sounds of dogs began to echo around the woodland.

'What the hell?' Stiles asked, breathing heavily as he glared between Lucy and I. His face, however, softened slightly when it clicked who I was. 'Amy!' he said brightly, moving quickly to pull me into a tight hug.

I chuckled, feeling Scott join in with the group hug.

'When did you arrive?' Scott asked, a tone of accusation to his voice.

'Only a few hours ago. What're you doing here?'

'Trying to find a body,' said Stiles simply, shrugging slightly. 'What about you?'

'Wait, you know about the body? How?'

'Dad,' said Stiles simply, pulling away so as to hug Lucy as well. 'How about you?'

'You're still listening into his calls?' she asked shrilly, looking up at him with wide eyes.

He shrugged, casting a slight look at Scott – it appeared he'd already been told off for that.

'Anyway,' I said, grinning around at the others and starting back up the hill, 'Pat's the one that found it.'

'Man, that's rough,' said Scott, sounding genuinely concerned about the older boy.

I shrugged. 'It's Pat, he'll get over it.'

'Anyway, let's go be the Scooby gang and find this body,' said Stiles, nudging my shoulder slightly.

'So you're Shaggy then?' I asked, grinning at him as we reached the crest of the hill.

'Wait, how comes?'

'Hey, hey you two!' Scott hissed, but Stiles and I were too lost in our own conversation to pay much attention.

A torch to the face however? Yeah, that caught our attentions, causing us to stop dead.

'Hold it right there,' an officer said sternly, flicking the thin beam of light between the two of us.

I cast a worried glance over my shoulder. Lucy and Scott were nowhere to be seen.

'Hang on, hang on,' came a familiar voice, though slightly sterner than I was used to. I groaned inwardly. This was bad.

I tuned back around quickly, trying for my best innocent smile as Sheriff Richard Stilinski stopped in front of us.

'This little delinquent belongs to me,' he said, his eyes narrowing at Stiles as he pointed towards him. 'And this one' – the accusatory glare turned to me – 'has worried parents looking for her.'

'Dad, how you doing?' Stiles asked brightly, rubbing the back of his neck though.

I downcast my eyes, a sinking feeling in my gut. Scolding by parents, not too bad, scolding by the Sheriff? Made you feel as though the earth opening up and swallowing you would have been easier to deal with. The disappointed look behind his eyes and the weariness of his expression was almost enough to make you promise never to do anything bad ever again. Only very almost though.

I let his words wash over me, slightly irritated that we'd failed to find the body. Now the police were here there wasn't a hope in hell that we'd get to look at it, to try and help solve the thing.

'Right, well,' the Sheriff said, making me look up sharply. 'I'm gonna walk you back to your car. And you and I are gonna have a little conversation about something called invasion of privacy.' He took hold of Stiles' collar before turning his attention towards me. 'And we're gonna talk about nicking keys and sneaking off.' He merely pointed slightly ahead of him, a stern look on his face replacing the disappointment for only a moment.

I sighed before walking ahead of him, a quick sideways glance at the trees where Scott and Lucy were hiding. I willed them to get going, to get to the car before we did, but I knew it was no use.

The walk back the car was exactly as the Sheriff had said, scolding us for our indiscretions and explaining why they'd been the worst things we could have done given the circumstances. He let go of Stiles almost as soon as we were away from his colleagues, but the stern frown remained on his face all the way back to the jeep.

My mind wandered, I only made the odd sound of acknowledgement of the conversation going on around me. My thoughts were plagued by worries about Scott and Lucy. We had this relatively easy – knowing the Sheriff and being frog-marched to a car was better than getting caught by officers who had no idea who you were, or why you were at the scene of a crime! I knew that they were the more sensible of us – well, Lucy anyway – but even then, would they be able to find their way back to the car without being seen? Would they be able to…

The thought stopped dead as we reached the edge of the preserve, and I gave a weak sigh of relief as I realised that Lucy's car was nowhere to be seen. They'd done it. They were probably both at home now, waiting for a text from us telling them about the scolding.

'Why didn't you tell me it was a body hunt? I would've told you how stupid it was and you wouldn't have got caught!' I could already see the text from Lucy, and it brought a weak smile to my face.

When we finally got into the jeep I looked around Stiles to look at his dad. Stiles began to drum a nervous tune on the steering wheel, his attention focused on the dashboard.

The Sheriff was wearing a slightly disappointed frown as he leant against the top of Stiles' open window. There were lines of stress creasing his forehead; his pale blue eyes had a weariness behind them which was slightly heart-breaking – how overworked was he?

'Right, make sure she gets home all right,' he said softly, leaning in to give Stiles' shoulder a slight squeeze. 'And then get to bed, you've got school tomorrow.'

He sighed deeply, patting the roof of the car as Stiles started the engine.

The beginning of the journey passed in an uneasy silence, Stiles checking his rear-view mirror more than he needed to. But, as soon as we were driving back through relative civilization he let out a long sigh of relief.

'Well, that could've been worse,' he said simply, casting a small smirk my way.

'Could've been worse?' I asked disbelievingly. 'Stilinski, you're messed up. Where was the shouting? The being told what a stupid idea it was?' I sighed.

'He'll be over it by tomorrow,' he said, making me scoff slightly. 'Seriously.'

We fell into silence once more, and I watched the scenery flicking by.

'So, how're you looking forward to tomorrow?' Stiles asked as we pulled up outside my house.

The honest answer? I was terrified. Despite the certainty that I knew a lot of the people there it had been over ten years since I'd been with them. And, while I had three friends who'd be by my side the entire time, I was worried that maybe the dynamic was one that just wouldn't work while we were at school, and they had to deal with me questioning things. I was worried that things wouldn't go right; that I'd suck because the school system was different. In short? I was definitely _not_ looking forward to having to deal with life as a high schooler.

'Oh yeah,' I said, focusing all my attention on the house so as to avoid Stiles' eye. I began to bounce my leg. 'Totally cannot wait. Anyway,' I added hastily, looking over at Stiles and trying for a bright smile, 'I should go in and hear the death sentence that's been passed on me for sneaking out. See ya tomorrow.'

I fumbled for the door handle, pulling at it quickly in an attempt to get out of the car as fast as I could.

'Yeah,' said Stiles in a small voice as soon as I managed to pull the door open, 'see you tomorrow.'

I slammed the door with nothing more than a weak grunt in acknowledgment.

Fear for the next day became a horrible knot in my stomach as I made slow progress towards the front door. Maybe if I ran away…

I shook the thought from my head. I couldn't do that, I'd only get the disappointed look again. And then there'd be the explanations as to why I'd done it, trying to come up with a viable one that didn't scream 'coward'.

With a sigh I pulled the key out of my pocket, preparing myself as best I could for the shouting that was to come as soon as I pulled open the door. At least some things were exactly as they'd been in England.

 _So yeah, here's the redo. Please let me know what you think of it either here or on my Tumblr:_


	2. First Day Occurrences

'Hey, wake up, Amy! Get up! We've got school today!'

Van's excitable babbling and bouncing on the end of my bed woke me up sharply. I groaned, rolled over and tugged the duvet higher in an attempt to block her out though.

I hadn't managed to get much sleep, after the shouting at from Mum and Dad about sneaking out when there's been a murder ('Amelia-Jane I thought you knew better than that!' Mum had greeted me with shrilly before I'd even stepped over the threshold), it was getting on for midnight. The worries of the day ahead then circled my mind as I was getting ready for bed, making sleep nearly impossible. So I paced up and down my room, trying to think of something else, trying to bore my brain so that I could sleep. But all of it was to no avail.

Van sighed indignantly before jumping off the bed. I heard her pad across the room, throw open the curtains so that the weak light of morning snuck in under the corner of my duvet and set my mind into a woken, if sluggish, action.

'All right, all right,' I said groggily, squinting against the light and putting a hand up to try and protect my eyes further, 'I'm up.'

I shifted to sit upright, moving the duvet off me. Van was grinning at the end of the bed, a look that was somehow a mixture of pure evil and amusement flickering across her face.

'Mum says breakfast's done,' she said, her eyes glinting mischievously, 'and if you're not down in half hour I get to eat all your stuff!' She then raced out of the room, chuckling in-between yells of how she'd done her job.

With a groan I rubbed my eyes clear of sleep before glancing towards the window. The curtains weren't all the way open, the soft light of morning was casting a weak glow across the carpet though and I could see the dust mites dancing around. Already there was the sound of cars moving about outside, people calling goodbyes and 'have a great day, honey!' were floating in through the window. How were people so chirpy first thing in the morning?

I sighed deeply before walking over to the dressing table and picking up the clothes I'd sorted out in one of my restless moments last night. I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror though, turning to inspect it

There was a rim of darkness around my eyes, making them seem a darker brown than normal. There was an agitated glint behind them though, a look that was showing on my face in way of a deep-set frown. My skin was slightly paler than normal, though it still retained a flicker of the light tan that it normally was. My hair was an absolute mess. It was a tangle of dark brown waves that looked as though I'd been walking in and out of a bush all evening.

I sighed, pushing my hair behind my ear before going to get ready.

When I finally descended the stairs, dumping my school bag at the bottom, I could already hear sounds from the hustle and bustle of the morning routine. I waited for a moment, letting the sense of normality wash over me.

I could hear Dad talking on the phone in the living room, the steady sound of his feet across the wooden floor as he paced. Every so often he'd fall silent though, pause and make a small sound of acknowledgement before resuming the pacing.

'D'you think we'll still get to do colouring?' Van asked excitedly from the kitchen, not waiting for an answer before the next questions tumbled out of her mouth though, 'Are you _sure_ I don't need a uniform? What about assembly, am I gonna have to sing more hymns?'

The kettle clicked, Mum chuckled. 'Where would be the fun if I told you what to expect? Now, what do you want in your sandwiches, chicken or ham?'

I heard Teddy hiss in pain before swearing under his breath, gaining a sharp 'Edward!' from Mum.

'Sorry,' he said simply before the tap was turned on, spluttering to life, 'it's just this robot.'

I sighed, knowing that I'd have to deal with the morning routine and the slightly sharp looks from my parents eventually, before walking into the kitchen.

'Look who finally dragged herself out of bed,' said Teddy, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth as he looked over at me from the sink. He had his thumb under the stream of water, a nasty red mark forming there already.

'Morning, Amelia-Jane,' Mum said stiffly, not looking up from making the sandwiches.

'Hey, Mum,' I said softly, before slipping into the seat beside Van.

'Are you looking forward to school, Amy?' she asked brightly, peering up at me as I poured myself a bowl of cereals.

'Oh, yeah,' I lied, trying to sound as enthusiastic as her, 'can't wait.'

Teddy scoffed, causing Van's face to darken slightly.

'He says it's stupid,' she said tartly, her eyes narrowing as Teddy moved to sit down while wrapping a tea towel around his hand.

'That's because it is,' he said dismissively with a slight shrug of the shoulders. 'Do I _really_ have to go?' he added to Mum.

'Yes,' she said sharply, glancing over her shoulder at him, her brown eyes narrowing in annoyance.

Teddy groaned, slumping back in his seat, but didn't protest the matter any further.

Just as Dad entered the kitchen, moving to kiss Mum lightly on the cheek and grab a cup of coffee, my phone vibrated in my pocket.

'Um,' Van said in a small voice that sounded like she'd just found out a neat piece of gossip, 'you shouldn't have your phone at the table.'

I rolled my eyes, knowing she was right but wanting to find out who'd texted me. I slipped the phone out of my pocket – half expecting it to be one of my friends from England asking me to hang out because they'd forgotten I'd moved – before clicking it to life. It was from Stiles, causing a small smile to slip onto my face.

 **Hey, how're you and Teddy getting to school today?**

Panic washed over me. How had we forgotten to sort out something so obvious? I hadn't even considered that – and the protests from Teddy made it blindingly obvious that he hadn't either. I assumed one of our parents were going to give us a lift, but Mum was dropping off Van on the other side of town and we only had the one car. The knot of worry in my stomach about the first day of school tightened.

'Um, Mum?' I asked tentatively, looking up quickly.

Something about my tone must've resonated with the maternal instinct inside her, because as she looked over at me any annoyance from the previous evening appeared to wash away.

'What is it, Amy?'

I sighed, slightly grateful that the thunderous mood was finally over. 'How are we getting to school?'

'There's a school bus from the end of the road I think,' she said softly. 'And I'll be making sure you turn up,' she added sharply, seeming to sense the look of defiance that had washed over Teddy's face.

'Dunno how,' he mumbled, moodily turning his attention back to the inner workings of the old toy robot.

I didn't really pay attention to the rest of the argument that ensued, Mum's shrill voice contrasting starkly with the dull complaints of Teddy, but turned my attention back towards my phone so as to reply to Stiles.

 **Us Cobalt teens get the joys of the school bus, apparently.**

I'd barely moved to pick up a cup of tea that Mum placed in front of me, sloshing some of its contents down the side in her preoccupation with shouting at Teddy, before the response came through.

 **Yeah, not any more. I'll be there in a bit.**

I sighed, at least that was a weight lifted.

Breakfast passed in a bit of a blur; Oscar picked Dad up, only poking his head in to wish us luck and ruffle an excitable Van's hair; Mum triple checked everything, ('Edward Cobalt what have I told you about taking screwdrivers into school!' she said sharply as she dumped a load of wires and tools onto the kitchen table) before realising that she'd forgotten her lunch just as she ushered Van out to the car.

'Behave,' she told us waspishly before closing the door with a snap.

'So,' Teddy sighed, slumping onto the sofa and trying to sort through his salvaged belongings, 'when d'you think we've gotta leave?'

'Stiles'll knock.'

Teddy dropped the screwdriver back into his bag, his attention on me though as he raised a curious eyebrow.

'Are we not even trusted to find the bus stop by ourselves?'

I chuckled, but, before I could explain a sharp knocking on the door made us both jump. Teddy cast a sideways glance at me as I stood up with a slight shrug.

When I opened the door Stiles was shifting his weight between his feet as his attention seemed to be caught by something to the left of the door.

'Um, hey?' I said, leaning out a little to try and see what he was looking at. I saw a cat's tail flick around the corner of the house and let a small smile slip onto my face. 'Van'll be happy.'

Stiles looked up quickly, a sheepish grin spreading quickly across his face. 'How is she?'

'An excitable bundle of energy. Wanna come in?'

'We should probably head off,' Teddy said dully from behind me, making me jump.

'All right, Teddy?' Stiles asked brightly, shifting to let me out.

Teddy shrugged as he locked the door. 'Ecstatic for the day ahead,' he said deadpan, before grinning as he turned around, his eyes finding the jeep quickly. 'So, who gave you a driver's license then?'

Stiles let out a sarcastic chuckle before starting down the garden path. 'Anyway,' he said, unlocking the car and motioning for Teddy to get in the back, 'when're you gonna introduce Van to some awesome Americans?'

'I'll let you know when we meet some,' I said, smirking as Stiles nudged my shoulder lightly.

'Hey,' said Teddy, surprisingly brightly as he shifted so as to lean his elbows on the front headrests, 'why don't you and your dad come over for dinner one day after school? I'm sure Mum'd love an excuse to show off her culinary skills.'

My stomach plummeted. The worries about school dancing around my mind once more.

'Can we not start planning for the future until I've survived a day as a high schooler, please?' I could feel a bubble of bile rising. I tried desperately to keep it down – why was starting a new school so nerve-wracking?

Stiles gave a weak chuckle as he started the engine. 'You'll be fine, Aim,' he said softly, giving my shoulder a slight squeeze before driving off.

The journey to school wasn't that long but the morning traffic meant that it was slow going. Teddy and Stiles' conversations washed over me, only occasionally gaining more than a snigger or a weak grunt of acknowledgement though.

My thoughts were a jumble of school worries and musings about the body in the woods, which now came spirally back to me. All I really wanted was to talk to Patrick, see what he'd actually seen to figure out if there was anything we could do, if there was anything the police – and probably Dad and Oscar – had missed. There was a fat chance of that happening now though. The body had probably been moved and no one would tell us anything anyway.

I sighed, trying to focus back on the conversation.

'Watch out for Harris,' Stiles warned, turning into the school carpark – how had we arrived already? Panic reared its ugly head in my stomach again. 'He's a real jerk.'

Stiles killed the engine before looking round at the both of us, a cheesy grin lighting his face.

'Welcome to Beacon Hills High.'

The school itself didn't look _that_ threatening. It looked a lot less worn than our old one, and there was a considerably smaller amount of graffiti littering the walls. The carpark was packed, students slipping out of cars whose stereos were wacked up way too high. Kids were milling around outside, calling over to friends or sluggishly following the crowds into the building.

'Which home room you in, Amy?' Stiles asked as we got out of the jeep.

I shrugged, I had absolutely no idea.

'Vice Principal's letting us know,' said Teddy simply, clapping me lightly on the back as he clambered out of the jeep. 'He's our first port of call.'

'Reckon I can see Scott first?' I asked, the panic rising again and the desire to check on the boy washing over me.

An odd look flashed across Teddy's face, one that seemed almost considerate as he nodded slightly. 'I'll tell him you had to nip to the loo, yeah?'

I nodded, a grateful smile slipping easily onto my face.

'Look after her for me, yeah?' Teddy asked Stiles in a low voice, casting me a wary glance as he tightened his grip on the strap of his bag.

'Of course.'

Teddy nodded before joining the throng of students, getting lost in a sea of heads almost instantly.

'Come on,' Stiles said, lightly nudging my shoulder and pointing towards Scott.

I nodded slightly, casting a quick glance around for Teddy, kind of wanting my big brother back beside me to help make this all seem a little less terrifying, before following Stiles. Teddy was nowhere to be seen.

'All right?' I asked as Scott chained his bike up, a slight look of irritation on his face.

'Huh? Oh, yeah. You looking forward to–?'

'Yeah, yeah, share your pleasantries later,' Stiles said impatiently, waving a dismissive hand as he bounced on the balls of his feet, an excited energy hovering around him just before we started towards the school. 'OK, let's see this thing.'

Scott cast a weary glance my way before sighing and lifting his shirt. There was a bit of wadding taped to his side which he tentatively raised to reveal a red bite mark.

My insiders squirmed. Surely it couldn't have been–

'Oooh,' Stiles said, breaking my train of thought as Scott put his stuff back on.

'Yeah, woah!' agreed Scott as we carried on walking. 'It was too dark to see much, but I'm pretty sure it was a wolf.'

My stomach felt as though it had fallen through the floor. I didn't hear the rest of the conversation though, I was too wrapped up in my own thoughts, trying to make sense of the things that had happened since we'd arrived.

This was bad. Very bad. Had Patrick lost control last night after finding the body? Had he been the one to create the body? _No_ , I told myself sternly with a slight shake of the head, _Car would've been in more of a state_. Did Pat know who had done it then? Was that why Car came to visit last night? Surely that was it. Surely they knew the werewolf – I mean, do they have some sort of call log like witches do? Some little black book to keep a check on one another?

'Hey, have you two bored her to death already?' Lucy's voice was a light teasing tone that instantly snapped me from my wonderings. She was grinning over at us from beside a pretty red-haired girl – was that Lydia Martin? – who Stiles was ogling at, his mouth slightly agape as he held a hand up to wave at her awkwardly.

'Not yet, Lu,' I reassured her, clapping the boys on the shoulders.

'Come on, Luce,' the red-haired girl said, not even glancing our way. 'We've got home room and I told Jackson I'd meet him first.'

Lucy shrugged, grinning over at us before following the girl with a flick of her long blonde hair. I watched as a few other people began to swarm around them, talking excitedly about something that sounded a lot like lacrosse.

'She mean Jack?' I asked, raising an eyebrow, interrupting Stiles' complaining about his nerd status.

'Possibly,' said Scott evasively, shrugging slightly. 'D'you know where you need to go first?'

I rolled my eyes, recalling how the duo disliked Jackson Whittemore now – apparently he was somewhat of a bully (which was the polite way of noting what the boys had called him over the years). In my eyes, however, he was still the little Jack I'd spent a day on the swings with, being ranted at about lacrosse while we were protesting against Teddy and his friends who always claimed the things.

My insides were squirming again though. The prospect of meeting the Vice Principal made my skin crawl – I mean, I wasn't exactly the best of students, but the mere prospect of having to deal with someone like that was terrifying.

'C'mon,' said Stiles, nudging my shoulder lightly and shining a weak smile my way, 'we'll show you where the office is.'

It was nice, walking between the two boys and listening to their argument about lacrosse practice. My mind kept focusing on first day nerves though, it felt as though eyes were glancing towards me. I had the horrible sensation that everyone knew I was the new kid, and that somehow they were going to ask so many questions that I'd wish the floor would just open up and eat me.

'Well, this is you,' Stiles said, clapping dramatically and practically doing jazz hands as we reached the outside of the office.

Teddy was sat just outside, fiddling with the mechanisms inside the robot. Wires were hanging out of his bag, littering the chair beside him. He didn't even look up, just kept mumbling about the wire being too short or something.

'See you in class, probably,' said Scott, giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze as he shone me a bright smile.

'Yeah, a girl can hope,' I said simply, smirking at him as the duo began to join the crowds of people slowly making their way to class.

I didn't sit down, a nervous energy washing over me and causing me to pace up and down, just in front of Teddy, who merely grunted a greeting when the boys were finally gone. How was he so calm about all this? How could he just sit there and–?

'Hello,' a bright voice cut my thoughts off and I turned around hastily.

There was a man standing in the doorway to Teddy's left. He was wearing a small smile as his eyes flitted across the stuff in Teddy's lap – despite how my brother was trying desperately to stuff the things back into his bag – before he looked at the both of us and his smile seemed to widen.

'You must be Edward and Amelia-Jane Cobalt?'

I wanted to reply but my mouth was suddenly very dry and the best I could do was nod slightly, feeling the blush rising up the back of my neck.

'Yeah, Teddy and Amy normally though,' Teddy introduced, a quizzical look shot my way before he stood up though, extending his hand.

'Ah,' the man said with a weak chuckle, shaking Teddy's hand before turning his attention towards me. 'Well, make sure you're teachers know that otherwise full names is all you'll get.'

While his smile was bright I couldn't help but feel a little nervous as I tentatively extended my hand towards him. The handshake was firm, and I quickly removed my hand so as to stuff it into my pocket out of nerves. Surely this wasn't meant to be this difficult!

'New schools can be difficult,' he said knowingly, causing my eyes to widen slightly, 'but I'm sure you'll fit right in. In fact, you've got another new classmate who I'm sure will understand what you're going through.'

He nodded slightly, as if happy with his reassurance, which if I'm honest hadn't really done much, before ushering us into his office.

The office itself was reasonably small, with only a few things which made it feel slightly homely. There were a few photographs scattered on his desk, and the bookshelves were lined with titles which varied from self-help books to 'Advanced Mathematics' that looked as though it had barely been touched.

He indicated that we take the two seats on one side of the table, before moving to sit opposite us. He rested his elbows on the table, interlinking his fingers so as provide his chin with a resting place.

If I'm honest, I zoned out as he explained to us about the rules of the school. I heard the odd word of his assumption that it wouldn't be too different from our school in England, and his questioning Teddy about the robot – trying to make some form of conversation as the buzz of students moving off to their first lesson filled the corridors nearby.

'Well, I'll show you to your first lesson, Teddy, and then would you care to join me as I give our other new student the introduction talk, Amy?'

I felt my eyes widen, and looked quickly around at Teddy who not so subtly rolled his eyes at me.

'Y-yeah,' I stuttered, nodding and trying to cover my blush by shaking my hair free from behind my ears.

The man smiled before standing up, pulling his blazer down slightly. The corridors were deserted when we started out, the kids here appeared to actually turn up to things on time rather than milling around the corridors trying to put off the inevitable.

'Hey, are you all right?' Teddy asked lightly, hanging back slightly so as to walk in step with me.

I sighed, debating whether or not to tell him that I was terrified, and the fact that Scott thought he'd been bitten by a wolf wasn't helping. But I decided against it, he had enough on his plate without me adding to it. And anyway, the supernatural wasn't his fight, not really anyway.

'Yeah, just really can't be asked with school,' I said in an undertone. The sceptical look shot my way told me he hadn't brought it, but I was saved by the Vice Principal trying to engage Teddy in another mechanical conversation.

I was slightly grateful when Teddy was ushered into his maths classroom with a slight shrug – I could see a slight amount of panic behind his eyes, but there was a small smile playing on the corner of his mouth. He didn't care what people thought, he just wanted to put his head down and be out of the place as soon as possible.

'So, Amy,' said the Vice Principal as we wandered towards a door leaving the school, 'how does it compare to England?'

Now there was a broad question! I nodded my thanks to him as he held the door open, trying to come up with a viable answer which didn't end up coming out as a tumble of words, lifting the floodgates for everything I already missed.

'Ah,' he said brightly before I could answer though, his attention flicking towards a pretty girl sat on a bench with her phone pressed to her ear. 'That must be Allison.'

'Oh, my God, I didn't actually forget a pen,' she was muttering hurriedly into her phone, looking desperately through her bag. Yet as she looked up and saw us she sighed, flipping the cover back over and shining us a small smile. 'Okay, okay. I gotta go. Love ya.'

'Hey,' I said in a small voice, noticing the sideways glance from the Vice Principal.

'Hi, I'm Allison,' she said brightly, extending her hand towards me. There was a bright smile on her face now, something about it put me at ease.

'Nice to meet you, Allison, I'm Amy,' I said, a genuine smile slipping onto my face.

'Is that an–?'

'Well,' the Vice Principal cut in, 'I reckon I should show you to your first class. You've got English together.'

He grinned before ushering us back into the school, talking mild manneredly to Allison about all the moves she'd made – and by the sounds of it there had been a lot.

I let their conversation wash over me, too busy letting the wonderings about the first lesson wash over me. I was glad to see, however, when we were introduced to the class and I could feel the weak blush of embarrassment rising up my cheeks, that the idiots were in my class. Stiles was leaning back in his chair, a bright smile lighting his features while he gave me a slight wave and nodded to the spare seat to one side of him. I noticed, however, that while Scott had given me a thumbs up that his attention was on Allison. I made a mental note to mention the lovesick look that had crossed his face to him later.

Unfortunately, Allison slipped into the seat near the boys, leaving me to take up the chair on the other side of the class from them, sitting beside a guy with dark hair and a camera by his feet. I sighed, certain that he wasn't feeling very chatty, and cast a disappointed look towards Stiles, who shrugged. He tried mouthing something at me, but the sharp cough from the teacher cut him short, and Stiles slumped into his seat moodily.

To say the morning was boring would have been somewhat of an understatement. Not much happened in lessons – even when the Coach had to deal with Stiles and I trying to catch up at the back of the classroom and being told off for hiding behind books. The fun really appeared to start, however, when lunch was beginning and I was brought face to face with the horrors of the American locker system.

'What is this?' I asked, dumping my bag at my feet as I inspected the abomination that was hanging from the front of my locker, not even bothering to tuck the piece of paper with locker number on and the scrawl of the Vice Principal that read 'default' away.

'A locker?' said Scott, sounding slightly confused as he twisted his own dial with a practiced ease, opening the thing without a moment's pause for thought.

'No,' I said, picking up the lock and giving it a weak, exasperated shake. 'This!'

'Well, my dear Amy,' said Stiles, the condescending tone to his voice making my hackles rise as I glowered at him, 'it's called a lock.'

'Where'd I put the key?'

'You don't, it's a combination,' said Scott, his tone trying to be soothing despite the small smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.

'What am I meant to do if I forget the code?'

'Get the janitor to cut it off.'

'And then pay for a new one I suppose?' I asked, looking at the two boys quickly. They shared a slightly amused smile before nodding. I groaned. 'I can't even pick this!' I hissed, letting the lock drop back against the locker with a soft _ting_. I picked my bag up and put the strap firmly over my shoulder. 'I refuse to use it.'

The smirk playing on Stiles' face finally settled as he started unloading his rucksack into his locker. 'Why don't we just show you how to–?'

'No, I'm carrying everything with me. I managed it back home, how difficult can it be?' I said, nodding defiantly as I glared at the combination lock that was glinting tauntingly in the light.

'If you're still saying that by the end of the day, I'll… I'll…' Stiles' eyes flickered around the corridor in search of something, before his eyes quickly snapped towards where I was certain Lydia was. He nodded slightly before looking back towards me. 'I'll try asking Lydia out next time she's not with Jackson.'

I frowned, my attention flicking towards the red-head who was talking animatedly with Lucy, who was dumping things into her own locker. Lydia was being hugged by… Jackson? He looked different to how I remembered him, though it wasn't to be unexpected. There was a weak scowl on his face that contrasted with the last memory I had of him, but I pushed the reminiscences aside so as to look towards Stiles.

A small smirk settled on my face. 'All right, you're on,' I said simply, holding my hand out for him.

Stiles eyed the proffered hand cautiously. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Scott smirking slightly, but his attention appeared to be focused on Allison who was keeping her head down, putting things into her locker while appearing to try and be ignored. I felt a certain twinge of guilt, maybe I should've brought her over and introduced her to the boys… my mind was currently focused on the locker issue though to give it too much thought.

'Aw, you're not chickening out of a bet are you, Stilinski?'

The taunt appeared to hit the required nerve as Stiles took a deep breath. There was a look of irritation behind his eyes as he slapped his hand against mine, shaking it firmly.

'Of course not, just trying to figure out what you have to do if you lose.' Despite everything there was a slight look of panic behind his honey-coloured eyes. This was going to be entertaining to say the least.

'Hey, are you gonna watch the lacrosse practice?' Scott finally intervened, his attention snapping towards us as Allison practically scurried away, only to be ushered to one side by a grinning Lucy and friends, Lydia and Jackson having skulked off.

I furrowed my brow slightly. 'Lacrosse?' I knew it had been a big deal in Beacon when we were growing up, but I hadn't expected it to still be around.

Stiles rolled his eyes, draping an arm over my shoulders as he clicked his lock back into place. 'Will she ever learn?' he asked Scott with a slight sigh.

'Maybe we need to give her remedial lessons on how to be American again.'

I groaned, ducking from under Stiles' arm. 'What, I thought it was all baseball over here.'

'Sheesh,' Stiles said, lightly hitting his forehead against the palm of his hand. 'You really are slacking.'

I sneered over at him. 'Anyway, where's the fun in sitting around and watching you two play lacrosse?' I asked, shifting back to walk between the two of them, gaining the odd corrective steering by the shoulder if I went to go straight down a corridor.

'I'm gonna make the team this year,' Scott said, and the determination burning behind his eyes made my heart swell with pride.

Stiles, however, sighed, seeming to deflate slightly. 'We're gonna make fools of ourselves and end up as benchwarmers again.'

'Hey, at least that means you're on the team, right?'

Stiles looked over at me, raising an eyebrow. 'Yeah, but we don't do anything.'

'We will this year,' said Scott, patting the boy on the back and shooting him a wide grin. 'You'll see.'

Stiles rolled his eyes dramatically before slipping into a seat while glancing nervously around the canteen. I raised an eyebrow at Scott, but the smirk on his face and the nod towards where Lydia and Jackson were sitting – a short distance away from Allison and Lucy – told me all.

'Still pinning away there?' I asked, smirking slightly as Stiles blinked dumbly before looking around at me.

'Just for that you can be bag watcher while we get food,' he said, before poking his tongue out at me.

I rolled my eyes though, glancing over at the sea of people queueing to get food. 'Yeah, glad I packed a lunch,' I said, dumping my bag onto the table.

As first days go – as far as I'm aware anyway – mine wasn't _too_ dreadful. Maths was a pain, but then again it always was, and having Stiles or Scott in most of my lessons was something I was truly grateful for. The last lesson of the day, however, was French with Allison and Lucy.

'So,' Allison asked, her attention on me rather than whatever the teacher was currently spouting. I tried to keep my attention on the lesson, jotting down the few things that I understood, however the feeling of someone's eyes on the back of your neck was always enough to distract me. 'You moved here from England, yes?'

I sighed, noticing that the squiggle on my page literally meant nothing in any language known to man – perhaps Goblin, but that was a matter for another day – before looking over at Allison.

'Yeah, but I was born here,' I told her, shooting Lucy a small smile.

'Huh,' said Allison, a small smile flitting across her face. 'Must be odd coming back here then.'

I shrugged, there was no way I was getting into the whole Dad's work thing because by the looks of things that'd involve more digging. I certainly wasn't going to confess the whole P.I. thing with Oscar into the supernatural during a French lesson if anywhere!

But, my thoughts of an excuse were cut off by the sharp ring of the bell, and I gave a mental sigh of relief.

'You watching the practice?' Lucy asked lightly, tucking her things in her bag as Allison muttered a goodbye to us.

'Oh, yeah,' I said, 'the boys are trying out.'

'Don't get your hopes up, Aim,' said Lucy softly, patting me on the back.

'What'd you mean?'

'She means,' came the voice of Lydia as she came strutting down the corridor towards us, her bag swinging from the crook of her elbow, 'that unless you want to see some real lacrosse being played, you only need to watch Jackson and Danny.' She smiled at us brightly, her attention flicking towards Allison who was by her locker though.

'Jack still plays lacrosse?' I asked disbelievingly.

Lydia raised an eyebrow, her smile faltering slightly. 'You know Jackson, then?'

'Yeah,' I said dismissively, looking over at Lucy for confirmation. She gave me a slight nod.

'He's the captain of the team, Amy,' Lucy said simply, ushering me towards her locker as Lydia's attention shifted towards Allison and she wandered over to her.

'Weedy little Jack? The kid who cried when – who was it again? – anyway, when his milk got spilt in the playground?'

Lucy chuckled, rolling her eyes as she went to dump things in her locker, the sea of people making it impossible for me to see if the boys were by our lockers. 'Yeah, him. Though, I don't think he'd be grateful if you reminded him of that. How'd you remember it anyway?'

I shrugged, shifting my bag further up my shoulder. It had been a pain all day, but there wasn't a chance in hell that I was gonna let Stiles win our little bet. 'It's just one of those things, I guess.'

'Oh, and I wouldn't go around calling him Jack anymore,' she warned as we wandered towards the doors to the playing field. 'Kind of a touchy area now.'

I went to ask why but Lydia cut across me, it appeared that we'd regrouped and Allison had joined us looking slightly anxious. 'Come on then, let's go cheer on our team and find out who'll be bringing us the cup, again.'

I tried to shine Allison a welcoming smile, but the girl was looking around like a doe in the headlights, trying to find an escape route as she followed Lydia.

'Aim thinks that Scott and Stiles are trying out,' Lucy said, shooting a smirk my way and causing me to roll my eyes.

'Who?' Lydia asked dismissively, waving over at Jackson as he jogged out onto the field. I paid little attention to the rest of the conversation, searching the crowd of expectant lacrosse players for the boys.

Stiles was trailing behind, talking quickly to Scott who was walking briskly behind the others, sorting his gloves out. It was odd to see the determination behind Scott's whole demeanour, but quite nice. Stiles rolled his eyes, lolling his head slightly as he did so. His attention caught me and he elbowed Scott hard in the ribs, pointing towards our little group as we shimmied our way through the stands to get the middle seats.

I waved down at them, beaming as Lucy poked her tongue out at them – gaining a half disapproving, half amused glance from Lydia.

'Well, if nothing else,' said Lucy when the practice was underway and Scott caught a ball to the face, the lilt of amusement behind her voice making my skin crawl slightly. 'At least they're reasonably amusing to watch.'

I nudged her shoulder slightly, leaning forward to bite my nails.

'Who's that?' Allison asked, nodding towards Scott.

'Scott McCall,' I said automatically, cutting across Lydia who had opened her mouth to answer. She shut it firmly though, her eyes narrowing on the pitch once more.

Just then, Scott scored. I jumped up, clapping him along with the others. Whooping as Stiles jumped up, his face alight with pride. He shot a quick glance my way, his smile wider than I'd seen it before. The mere sight lifted my spirits slightly, and my smile widened.

'He seems like he's pretty good,' said Allison, her eyes shining with something that looked very much like admiration.

'Yeah, very good,' said Lydia, almost distractedly.

'OK, so maybe I should give them slightly more credit,' sighed Lucy, a smile flickering at the corner of her mouth as she lamely applauded Scott.

The rest of the practice was somewhat duller than Scott's initial skilful showing off. Stiles barely did anything, and yet by the end of the thing he appeared to be bent double panting as hard as he could as sweat glistened on his forehead.

'That was awesome, Scott,' I said, clapping him lightly on the back when the duo finally strolled out of the locker room.

The other boys from practice were filing out, nodding and holding small conversations of expected politeness with Lydia. She shone them all falsely sweet smiles, a slight amount of irritation burning behind her eyes as she tried keeping up a conversation with Allison and Lucy about fashion or something as trivially boring to me.

Scott beamed at me, pulling at the strap of his bag slightly awkwardly, his attention focused on a chuckling Allison. 'Yeah, thanks, Aim.'

I decided instead to tease Stiles about his failing attempts to play lacrosse, realising that we weren't going to get anything logical out of Scott any time soon.

'And… that last dive was…' I groped around for the right word in my mind, shining Stiles a highly amused smirk. 'Aha, it was very impressive. Fitting of a premiere league footballer.'

Stiles let out a bark-like sarcastic laugh, rolling his eyes as he slipped his car keys out of his pocket.

'D'you want a lift in future or not?'

'D'you wanna have to deal with Teddy all by yourself?' I asked, raising an eyebrow at him as we began towards the carpark, just passing the trio in time to see Jackson turn up and wrap his arms around Lydia.

'Hm, fair point,' said Stiles, grinning as he nudged my shoulder slightly, his attention firmly focused away from the sickening couple; Lydia let out a tinkling laugh at something or another that Jackson had said, and even the slight look of distaste that passed across Lucy's features told me that this was about as tame as their displays of affection got.

'Anyway,' said Scott, finally seeming to bring himself out of his Allison induced stupor, 'you coming back to the woods tonight?'

'Um, how comes? I thought the body was part of the "ongoing investigation" or something.'

'Yeah, but I dropped my inhaler. You have no idea how hard it was walking back after that,' Scott's eyes narrowed slightly in the closest he got to showing irritation.

'Lu didn't give you a lift?'

Scott shook his head as he started to unlock his bike from the rack. 'Na, we got separated, hence why I got bitten and she's fine.'

I nodded, how had that thought not occurred to me? I was glad to see that Lucy appeared fine though, not that I'd even considered that she might not have been even though Scott had been attacked. I vowed to make sure that I brought her chocolate or something as a pathetic apology though.

'Yeah, I'll come. See if we can't dig up any more clues about what happened.'

'All right, Sherlock,' said Stiles, casting an amused sideways glance my way as he dumped his bag into the back of the jeep. 'C'mon, let's go – make sure missy here's back before her parents start to worry.'

He draped an arm over my shoulders but I ducked away from him, glaring up at him and fighting back a smirk. How hard could it really be trying to find an inhaler in the woods?

 _Please let me know what you think of it either here or on my Tumblr:_


	3. Lessons in Lycanthropy

'Why isn't this thing like luminous yellow or something for cases like this?' I asked as we pulled up outside the preserve.

The journey there had been filled with Scott giving us a play-by-play of his lacrosse skills. Every so often Stiles would cast a quick glance in the rear-view mirror and shoot me an amused smirk before we hastily looked away, trying not to smirk. There was a silent agreement that Scott had been fantastic at practice, one which we were now glad of as he seemed to swell with pride at the prospect of being through to the elimination – but it was currently all he could talk about. We'd praised him as much as we dared without letting his head grow too big – the odd knocking remark from Stiles helping with this. I'd also teased him about his current infatuation with Allison, so much so that he blushed and stopped talking about lacrosse for all of three seconds so as to look dreamily out of the window, his attention not focused on anything else but his thoughts.

'Duly noted,' Scott said, grinning at me as we wandered towards the fence into the preserve, 'I'll make sure to spray paint it when we find it.'

'Can we put pink dots on it, too? Just so it stands out, of course,' said Stiles, smirking as he caught up with us, pocketing his car keys.

Scott looked over at him aghast. He began to splutter his protests.

'C'mon, Scotty-boy,' I said, draping an arm around his shoulders. 'It's that or we chain it to your wrist so you don't forget it.'

'And then spray paint it,' said Stiles, grinning evilly.

Scott merely rolled his eyes, a small smirk on his face though. 'Let's get going, the sooner we find it the sooner we can leave.'

'You know, if a squirrel's got drunk off it I'm not getting it back for you, dude,' said Stiles, rubbing a hand over the nape of his neck.

'They get drunk on pumpkins,' I said absently, scanning the ground for signs of the inhaler. 'Dunno how an inhaler'd affect them… or how they'd use it for that matter.'

'Pumpkins? How'd you know that, Aim?' asked Scott.

I looked up slowly, glancing between the two, slightly smirking boys. I shrugged. 'Heard it somewhere. Anyway,' I said, turning to face Stiles, 'I kept my bag on me all day. When can I expect a wedding announcement from you and Lydia?'

The colour rose quickly to Stiles' cheeks and he turned away mumbling darkly. I noticed that Scott was grinning, managing not to laugh though as he hastily turned his attention back towards the floor.

'Did you enjoy English with Matt? Learn lots about camera lenses?' Stiles asked sharply, causing me to pause.

'Oh yeah, I had a nice little chat with the silent boy. He and Isaac are now my best friends, I'm merely here to watch you flailing about in the forest,' I said, rolling my eyes as Stiles scoffed though, grinning back at me.

I'd imagined that traipsing through the woods was going to be a lot more entertaining than it actually was. While it was good being with the boys, listening to Scott trying to explain how he'd suddenly gotten so good at lacrosse, you literally could not make hide nor hair of anything littered amongst the dark brown leaves covering the floor… OK, so it wasn't that difficult, but I was beginning to lose hope of ever finding the inhaler. It also didn't help that Scott was having some difficulty trying to remember where he'd been

'Hey, it was really dark and I was kind of terrified of the things attacking me!' he'd said when I muttered some annoyance about the whole thing.

If I was honest I was kind of regretting not having forced the boys to let me dump my stuff at home. I could've tried snooping in the office for some information about the body; or the basement… I cut that thought short though. No, this was a new start and I wasn't letting that thought into my head for the moment. Not until Mum forced me to it, anyway.

'You know what?' said Stiles, pulling me from my thoughts and back towards the conversation at hand. 'I actually think I've heard of this. It's a specific kind of infection.'

Stiles winked over at me, an amused grin on his face as I noticed the look of panic crossing Scott's features.

'Are you serious?' asked Scott, looking between the two of us.

'Yeah,' said Stiles, nodding gravely.

I tried my best to look serious, too, despite a slight niggling worry at the back of my mind. What was Stiles up to?

'Yeah, I think it's called lycanthropy.' Stiles' comment made my heart skip a beat.

Surely it wasn't that extreme. Scott had just been bitten by a common wolf – though, even I knew that was a pathetic idea. And surely, if this was a worst case moment, Dad would've found out, told me so that I could try helping my best friend through it rather than dancing around the idea that it might all be fine.

But then again, who knew what was going on with the werewolf population in Beacon Hills at the moment. If there was enough happening to bring Dad back here…

'…the body, the deer came running. I dropped my inhaler,' said Scott, looking around the little clearing and pointing to different areas as he ran through the events.

I blinked slightly, pulling myself back to the task at hand. Everything else was speculation and could wait. Right now I needed to help Scott find the inhaler.

'Maybe the killer moved the body,' suggested Stiles, moving a pile of leaves with his toe.

'Maybe they thought the inhaler belonged to the victim,' I suggested, crouching slightly in an attempt to help look for the thing. 'Needed to get rid of any evidence.'

'I hope not,' said Scott, frowning around at the ground as if hopeful that the inhaler might just jump out at him. 'Those things are like eighty bucks!'

'Why the hell are they so expensive?' I asked, looking up at him sharply.

Before Scott could answer, however, someone stepped into the clearing with us. Stiles stumbled backwards slightly, giving a small 'Oh' as he fell in line with us. I balled my hands by my sides, fear pumping through me. How had the guy snuck up on us? The leaves had been crunching under foot so much previously, how was that–

'What are you doing here?' the guy asked, surveying us coolly.

There was an air about him that I didn't like, the kind that bad guys have in kids TV shows. It was a quiet kind of superiority that set my teeth on edge. He was very pale, though that probably wasn't helped by the black hair and the leather jacket he was wearing. His eyes were narrowed on us, his jaw clenched slightly. It was almost as if he was sizing up his prey.

His attention lingered on me for a moment, the briefest look of confusion flickered across his features. I tried my best not to wilt under the glare, feeling my heart pounding worriedly against my ribs.

A slight smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth before he turned his glare upon Scott.

'Huh?' the guy continued. 'This is private property.'

'We, um, we got lost, and didn't–'

'Uh, sorry, man, we didn't know.'

Stiles and I awkwardly spoke over each other, fading out as Scott stepped forward slightly. He maintained eye contact with the guy somehow. I cast a wary look at Stiles, feeling a slight blush rising to my cheeks as he shifted his weight awkwardly between his feet.

'Yeah, we were just looking for something, but…' Scott explained, surveying the incredulous expression of the man though. He sighed. 'Uh, forget it.'

Just then the guy shifted quickly. I wasn't sure what was going on, but flinched slightly. It wasn't until I dared a glance back towards the others, Stiles chuckling awkwardly at my reaction, that I noticed the inhaler clasped firmly in Scott's hand.

The guy shot us all one last glare before skulking back into the woods.

'What the hell was that about?' I asked breathlessly once he was out of sight.

'Who knows,' said Stiles, shrugging as he surveyed Scott slightly.

'Come on,' said Scott, glaring at the space where Mr Mystery had been for a moment before looking at his watch. 'I gotta get to work.'

'Dude,' said Stiles, looking around at us before Scott could dart off; there was a quiet curiosity behind his voice which interested me, 'that was Derek Hale.'

I didn't pay much attention to the ensuing conversation, merely glanced at the woods where he'd disappeared. My head was spinning.

Hadn't all the Hale family died in the fire? If Derek was alive though, did it mean that Cora could be, too? If that was the case what on earth did I tell Teddy? 'Oh yeah, by the way your best friend might still be alive, just ignoring you.' Yeah, that'd be a brilliant conversation to have.

But there was also the fact that I'd heard Oscar and Dad talking about them before. By the sounds of things they were a born werewolf family, however that worked! In that case was Derek the new Alpha? Had he been the one to bite Scott? Was it Mr Moody-Hale that had quite possibly turned Scott's life upside down?

'Come on,' said Stiles, clapping me lightly on the back.

I blinked around dumbly, noticing that Scott had already begun to pick his way back through the forest.

'You all right?' asked Stiles, frowning at me as I push my hair off my face, my mind still swimming.

'Huh? Oh, yeah,' I said absently, following Scott. 'Just wasn't expecting to see Derek Hale around. D'you think–?'

'I wouldn't get Teddy's hopes up,' said Stiles, falling into step with me. 'No one knows exactly what happened. Just because one of 'em's shown up out of nowhere, doesn't mean the rest will.'

I sighed. 'Yeah, I guess this isn't some zombie film. Just Beacon Hills.'

He chuckled, nodding slightly. 'Exactly. Now, come on, we'd best make sure Scott doesn't get bitten by a vampire this time!' And with a quick wink Stiles darted off after Scott, clapping him on the back when he reached him.

Stiles dropped Scott off at home first, his parting comment merely being 'Remember to show those dogs who's boss, Mr Werewolf!' before he drove away to a rude hand gesture from Scott but a slight chuckle.

'D'you really think he was bitten by a wolf?' I asked tentatively, glancing out the window absently.

Stiles scoffed slightly. 'I doubt it – unless he's been outside of California somehow… or ended up in the zoo,' he said, causing me to turn towards him sharply. He cast me a quick glance before focusing on the road again. 'There haven't been wolves here for like sixty years. He's gonna be all right, you know that, don't you?' he added soothingly, mistaking my silence for concern.

'Hey, d'you reckon you could drop me off at Car's?' I asked, a wave of inspiration crashing down on me.

Stiles raised an eyebrow. 'How come?'

'There's something I need to check with him,' I said. I mean, it wasn't exactly a lie – I did want to talk to him, well, mainly Pat – but it wasn't the whole truth either.

Stiles sighed. 'Sure thing. Know the address?'

I nodded, I'd checked out the address book during one of my bouts of sleeplessness, wondering if I could viably call someone from back home.

The journey to the Coopers' apartment was longer than the one home. It turned out they were living on the edge of Beacon Hills, closer to the preserve than I'd been expecting ('Sheesh, why didn't you say so before?' Stiles had mock complained at me, winking though). Stiles mainly drummed his fingers on the wheel in time to the music crackling out of the radio, an otherwise comfortable silence between us.

'You know,' said Stiles as he killed the engine, 'Scott can cope with a little bite. He's been through worse than this.'

I sighed, nodding slightly. 'I know, I just worry about you boys is all,' I said, smiling over at him sheepishly. I rested my hand on top of his, gave it a weak squeeze and then jumped out of the car. 'Thanks for the lift, Stiles, see you tomorrow.'

'Bright and early, Aim,' he agreed, nodding slightly before I turned around and moved towards the apartment.

I watched Stiles drive off only once I was safely in the entrance of the building.

The place was bigger than I'd expected. There was something about it that reminded me of the old hotels from films. There was an array of post-boxes on the wall opposite me, each labelled with a number and the name of the family living in the apartment. There was another door leading to the left, numbers lining the wall beside it so you knew which addresses were down there. A call box sat on the other side of the door; some of the papers with names were intricately designed, it was as if they were already trying to make a good impression on anyone calling, while others were just sun stained, tattered cards.

The Coopers' apartment was one labelled on the wall next to the lift, the paper looking slightly more professional than any of the others. They were on the floor below the studio.

I took a deep breath before ringing the bell.

'Hello?' Patrick asked sharply, and even through the slight static I could hear Oscar scolding him.

'Sorry, hello?' came the chirpier voice of Oscar, making me smirk.

'Hey, Car, it's me.'

'Hello me,' he said, causing me to roll my eyes and chuckle sarcastically at him. 'Let me buzz you up, Aim.'

There was the sound of a door unlocking and the lift doors opened.

'Thank you,' I said brightly, before wandering towards the lift.

The doors clanged shut just as I pushed the button. My stomach dropped at the movement, but I tried to ignore it. I needed to sort my thoughts out, my questions about the whole werewolf situation and my worries about Scott.

The lift clanged to a stop, an eerie voice letting me know that I'd reached the right floor, before the doors slid open. A man in a suit hurried past me, his nose buried in a newspaper. I slipped out of the lift as he fumbled for the right button, not looking up.

Glancing down the corridor I noticed that Oscar was already waiting for me. He was leaning casually against the doorframe into his apartment, his arms folded across his chest as he surveyed me carefully. As soon as he noticed I was looking at him though he grinned broadly at me – there's something to be said for the supposed charm of the Irish when it came to Car – and waved me over.

'Good to see you, Aim,' he said, pulling me into a hug as soon as I was close enough. 'How you finding America?'

'It's all right, I guess,' I said, pulling away and starting off into the apartment. 'Good to see old friends. Actually,' I said all of this rather quickly, knowing that he'd try and stop the line of inquiry if I didn't persist, 'Scott's the reason I'm here. I wanted to ask a few questions. Is Pat in?'

'No, I slipped down the fire escape when I heard you were coming, Amy,' came the slight drawl of Patrick, making me roll my eyes.

Patrick was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, his arms folded across his chest in a way that proved he'd been working out lately. His expression was the usual scowl as his pale blue eyes flicked across me, as if trying to second guess whatever I was here for.

'Trying to impress your new lady friend?' I asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.

'Oh ha, ha,' he said drily, his scowl seeming to deepen.

'Come on through, Amy,' said Oscar brightly, resting a hand on my shoulder and steering me towards the living room. 'Can I get you anything before you start the interrogation?'

I shook my head as Patrick settled himself into the armchair by the window.

Oscar sighed, wiped a hand wearily across his stubble covered chin, and sat down on the sofa, indicating that I sit, too.

'So, what can I help you with?'

'Actually, it's Pat I wanted to talk to,' I said, casting a sideways glance towards the scowling young man. 'About…'

'Spit it out, Aim,' spat Pat, but something about his expression shifted as he caught Car's eye. His scowl seemed to soften slightly and his features contorted into a look that resembled concern rather than his usual indifference. 'What's up?'

I took a deep breath; this was going to a more difficult conversation than I'd anticipated.

'I wanted to ask about how you turned into a werewolf,' I said in a small voice, hastily looking towards a stray thread in the sofa.

Pat exhaled slowly, but otherwise we all remained silent.

I cautiously glanced upwards. Oscar was frowning over at his nephew, his dark brown eyes seeming to gleam slightly. Patrick's expression was gloomy. He ran a hand through his black curls, focusing on the edge of the coffee table sitting between us.

'I – I'm so sorry, Pat, I didn't–' I started babbling, suddenly feeling terrible. Why hadn't I just spoken to Dad? – surely he and Mum knew all the details.

Patrick, however, waved a dismissive hand at me, cutting me short. My eyes widened in alarm as I heard Oscar shifting in his own seat. I kept my eyes on Pat though, trying to figure out if he was annoyed at me or what.

He gulped; I saw his Adam's apple shift slightly before he looked back up at me.

'Is this about Scott or just idle curiosity?' His voice was slightly hoarser than normal, but I tried my best to ignore it for his sake.

'Merely speculative at the moment,' I said, frowning slightly.

'So it's about Scott then?' said Oscar, causing me to look towards him sharply.

I sighed, nodding though.

'I was eight,' said Patrick in a small voice, pulling my attention quickly towards him once more. His attention was now on his hands, which he was wringing in his lap. 'I was bored and decided to go out on a little adventure to the preserve because apparently there was a wolf there.' He gave a slightly mirthless chuckle. 'I wanted to be the boy who tamed the wolf, keep it as a pet. Then I wouldn't have been bored again.'

He paused for a moment, licking his lips. He seemed to wring his hands tighter around each other, making his knuckles burn slightly white.

'I tripped when I was in some little clearing though – sprained my ankle, actually. I remember crying,' he said, his voice sounding slightly distant now. 'Then a twig snapped. I jumped, tried to stop crying and stand up, but it was all too much. Next thing I knew there was a sharp pain in my side. I'd been bitten.

'Rich found me the next day. Apparently the bite in my side was fading, so much so that all they did was give me a plaster and send me home. I was grounded for a month after that. I sat in my room, scared of the shadows and thinking about how utterly unfair it all was.'

There were tears glistening in the corners of his eyes and I hastily turned my attention towards Oscar. It was only right to give him his privacy after I'd dragged this all back into the light.

'He'd been bitten by an Alpha,' Car explained in a small voice, slowly turning his attention away from his nephew. 'It's the only way someone who's not got the werewolf gene can become one. Course, as soon as I heard I went over to visit them. I looked at the bite, spoke with your mam and pieced together what had happened.'

He rubbed a hand across his stubble again, surveying me slightly.

'D'you think Scott's been bitten?'

'Well he's definitely got a bite mark, and he thought it was a wolf,' I said, a feeling of dread washing over me.

I'd never wanted anyone else to be pulled into this supernatural hell. From what I'd heard of Patrick's transformations from Mum, and all the information which I'd been bombarded with since the age of eight myself, I'd made a vow to protect those I cared about from it. Never in a million years had I expected mild mannered and moral compass Scott McCall to be dragged into it like this! In a way that I couldn't stop however hard I tried.

'The Alpha'll try to get him on side after the full moon, once he knows that he's turned,' said Patrick, his voice suddenly stronger than before.

I looked over to him quickly. He was sitting a little straighter in his seat, his eyes now tear free and his old scowl stuck on his face.

'How do we stop that then?' I asked, looking quickly between the duo, hoping desperately that I'd be able to at least keep Stiles and Lucy out of this all.

'Move around for years on end and hope it gives up,' said Pat coolly.

My jaw dropped. 'Surely there's another way.'

'If you've heard of one through your little Sabbaths I'd be–'

'They're not Sabbaths!' I said shrilly, but Patrick continued as if I'd not spoken.

'–I'd suggest you try – merely for the entertainment value.'

I glowered over at him, wanting to snap back at him but half knowing I'd feel terrible for it after he'd just bared his weaknesses with me through his little story.

I exhaled slowly, mentally counting to ten.

'Can't you help him?'

'And risk angering this Alpha?' asked Car, frowning slightly. 'Look, Aim, you know enough to be able to help him through this – if it is _this_ of course. It might just be a bite, possibly a mountain lion.'

I felt irritation bubbling under the surface. How were they being so blasé about the whole situation?

'Is this about the body?' I asked suddenly, my curiosity about our move suddenly coming to the forefront of my mind.

'You – I – what?' spluttered Oscar, looking shocked as he swivelled his head so as to glance between me and Pat.

Things felt as though they were clicking together in my head. Things that seemed logically linked despite them having no proof. One day with Stiles and I was already determined to solve this case before his dad did!

'It's Derek Hale, isn't it?' I asked boldly.

'Derek Hale's back?' asked Pat, sounding genuinely shocked by the revelation.

'That's why we're back here, isn't it?' I asked, ignoring Patrick and focusing solely on Oscar. 'But why? I mean, he can't have been the one to bite Pat. But then–'

'That's quite enough, Amelia-Jane,' said Oscar waspishly, causing me to shrink back in my seat slightly.

His expression was darker than I'd ever seen it before. His eyebrows were nearly knitted together in a scowl that rivalled Patrick's. His cheeks were slightly alight with an irritated flush.

'Look, I am sorry if Scott has been bitten but… how did he get bitten anyway?' His tone had been a terrifying calm, but he added the last with a hint of curiosity that sounded more familiar to me.

I rubbed the back of my head awkwardly. I'd forgotten that we weren't meant to be in the preserve. The stern, adult-look from Oscar, however, made me certain that nothing but the truth would do here… or at least part of it.

'We found out about the body. We went investigating; Rich caught me and Stiles, but…' I paused, realising that at least one of us could get out of this without a shouting at; I carried on, pretending as if Lucy hadn't been there. 'But Scott had to run for it.'

Oscar sighed, rubbing his eyelids wearily. 'Look, I'm sure it'll all be fine. Just… just head home, Aim, I'm sure your mam'll have something to teach you that could help–'

I stood up quickly, wanting to steer clear of that subject. 'I'm sure I'll figure out a way of helping Scott,' I said hastily, before starting towards the door. 'Thank you.'

I strode out of the apartment before either of them could say anything else. My mind was reeling. Could Scott have really been bitten by an Alpha? Did Stiles really suspect the supernatural or was he just messing around 'cause Scott had no clue? Could I even keep Stiles out of this is he really did think there were supernatural roots in all this? In fact, did I really want to keep him out of it if his two best friends were a part of that world? This move had suddenly got a lot more complicated!

The following day I avoided the boys, not quite knowing how to deal with them now the threat of the supernatural taking over their lives was looming ever closer. I busied myself with work in the library, trying to hide myself in a corner so that I could avoid everyone. Luckily the boys were busy with lacrosse – though there had been a few texts which I avoided for as long as my willpower would allow.

Was it my fault that Scott had been dragged into this? Had the world I'd grown up in tainted the lives of my friend purely because I was back? And what about–

'Here you are,' said Lucy lightly, slipping into the seat beside me, closely followed by a blushing Allison and a smirking Lydia. 'I've been looking for you all over. Stiles said–'

'Did you hear?' Lydia cut across her, flipping her hair slightly over her shoulder and casting a dramatic glance towards Allison.

I raised an eyebrow, being glad for the conversation to move away from the others. 'Hear what?'

'Our little new girl's already set her sights on a boy!' Lydia said excitedly.

'I – it was just – I only agreed,' Allison spluttered, her blush deepening as she looked pleadingly towards Lucy.

'A certain Mr Scott McCall has swept our dear Allison off her feet. He was her knight in shining armour…' she paused, cast a sideways glance at a beaming Lydia, and changed her mind. 'OK, so more her shoulder to cry on in scrubs or whatever he wears at the clinic.'

'Something finally happened?' I asked, looking towards Allison how was fiddling idly with her hair.

'He just asked me to the party,' she said in a small voice, trying to sound casual about it. The gleam in her eyes and the smile lingering on her face, however, gave her happiness away.

'It starts off as "just asking" to the party and then…' Lydia cast a dramatic glance around our little group. 'Well,' she continued, settling back in her seat and digging out a few of her books, 'we all know what happens next.'

'Anyway,' I said, making a mental note to congratulate Scott on finally doing something rather than shooting puppy-eyes back at Allison's doe-eyes in classes, 'why're we all here.'

'It's a study period,' said Lydia, shrugging slightly as she opened her book.

What shocked me about Lydia Martin's notebook was that it was an ordered, colour coded note heaven. By the looks of things she'd filled most of the pages. There were little diagrams of the molecular formulas of certain solutions and mathematical equations that made me wonder what I'd missed in lessons.

'When did we do quadratic equation balancing?' I asked, pointing to the notes that Lydia was skipping over.

'We didn't,' said Lydia absently, poking my hand away from her book so as to get to what we were looking at, 'I just got bored.'

I gaped at her, noticing that Lucy was chuckling slightly.

As soon as the bell rang we stuffed our things in our bags before wandering towards the lacrosse field – I'd basically been dragged there against my will by an excited Lydia.

'Hey, hey, Aim!' came Stiles' voice before we'd reached the bleachers.

'We'll leave you to it,' I heard Lydia sing before I could pretend to have not heard Stiles. She quickly ushered the others off, Lucy shooting a wink my way before Stiles rested a hand on my shoulder.

'Scott might've been bitten by a wolf!'

I blinked at him, uncertain as to what to say. He motioned for me to follow him as he pulled his gloves on.

'And if he was then there are wolves here again! I mean, I have no idea what – Scott! Scott, wait up!' he said, noticing Scott wandering across the pitch and darting off after him.

My mind was reeling. If Stiles knew it was a wolf then surely it was only a slight jump to werewolf?

I shook my head firmly. No, Stiles wouldn't jump to that. Surely he was just joking yesterday.

The eliminations went by in a bit of a blur. Scott was on top form again, making shots that Stiles kept muttering were impossible. I was sat on the bench beside him, listening to his worries and watching Scott with bated breath. I didn't know a lot about lacrosse but I knew the shots Scott was making were impressive. Even Jackson looked a little taken aback. Coach, however, seemed to be thrilled with the apparently new attitude of Scott.

'This has got to be that bite,' mumbled Stiles as Coach began praising Scott.

'You what?' I said, looking around at him quickly. There was something serious about his expression that made my hackles rise.

'I know we were joking,' said Stiles, looking slightly shocked that I was there, 'but d'you think he might've been bitten by a werewolf?'

I tried to scoff at the idea, trying to push the worry aside, but my throat was dry.

'Can't have been,' I said, trying to keep a nervous waver out of my voice. 'I mean, it wasn't a full moon.'

Stiles seemed to deflate slightly. 'Well it definitely did something.'

'Anyway, have you been teasing him about Allison?' I asked, desperate to move the conversation away from dangerous waters. Despite all my worries I was glad to be with Stiles again, perhaps it would be better to protect him if I was closer…

'What?' asked Stiles, looking slightly baffled. He blinked a few times before a familiar smirk slipped easily onto his face. 'Oh, yeah. He hasn't shut up about it since first lesson. Are you and Teddy going to the party?'

I nodded. 'Yeah, some girl asked Teddy already – according to Mum his moody good looks and English accent have got all the girls pining over him,' I said, smirking at the mere memory of an irate Teddy last night at dinner.

Stiles chuckled. 'So is it only you that needs a lift then?'

'Na, Ted's refused to arrive with her – Mum tried telling him that pushing them away was only gonna make matters worse, but you know Teddy.'

Stiles nodded, grinning as a celebration appeared to be taking place on the pitch. 'I'll pick you both up when you're ready if you want.'

I nodded, but was distracted by the sound of applause behind us. I looked around at Lucy. She looked utterly dumbfounded but was clapping along with everyone else. Allison was looking affectionately at the pitch, clapping enthusiastically. There was a slightly calculating look behind Lydia's eyes, despite the bright smile as she applauded, too.

'What's going on?' I asked.

'Scott made first line,' Lucy said, not keeping the note of shock out of her voice though.

I shared a wide grin with Stiles, unable to get through the crowd to congratulate Scott.

'Let him know I say congratulations, will you?' I asked Stiles as he began to jog over to the others who were making their way back to the locker room.

'Will do!' he called over his shoulder. 'I'll tell you what I find out tomorrow, yeah?'

I forced a smile, nodding as Stiles got lost in the sea of players. Surely it wouldn't be that easy to find out much truth behind werewolves on the Internet, right?

 _My Tumblr: anotherimaginescollection_


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